The reasons behind charity worker 's brutal murder continue to confound family and friends, reports Firas Al-Atraqchi When Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) member returned from Iraq to his home in Virginia in the summer of 2005, he did not take a much-needed rest from spending so much time with dislocated and suffering Iraqis. Nor did he go on speaking tours about what he learned in Iraq or tackle the talk show radio circuit. He did what he always loved to do -- remain active and help the community. His friends remember his time serving as a head cook at a Quaker camp for children near Winchester, Virginia during the summer break. This was the kind of man Fox was, a man known to Iraqi and Palestinian children as 'Amu (uncle) Tom. Describing what motivated him to travel to global trouble spots, Fox, 54, wrote on his blog: "We must come from a spirit of love and compassion to help our leaders and many of our fellow citizens come to see that if we truly love God then we must make a drastic change of direction in the course of our country. The only way we will gain respect is by showing it to others, even those we disagree with. The only way we will gain love is by giving it to others, even those we disagree with. Love of country must always be subordinate to love of God. Love of country alone sets us on a course towards the disasters that have befallen other counties over the centuries. Charting a new course must begin now before it is too late." Such expressions of love for humanity and the divine make it all the more difficult to understand why -- and who -- could have killed Fox. A man who performed charity work throughout the world was found outside Baghdad with a bullet to the head and his corpse showing obvious signs of torture, according to Iraqi police. He had been kidnapped for more than three months. Three of his fellow CPT members are still in the hands of kidnappers. He had been in Iraq on his third voluntary tour of the country helping both Shia and Sunni communities learn of the fate of their detained relatives. According to CPT, their group in Iraq had been asked by Iraqis to seek information from Iraqi and US forces about relatives who may have been rounded up in security raids or at one of the hundreds of checkpoints which dot the country. For many of his friends and colleagues, Fox's death is as saddening as it is bewildering. Kathleen Kern, a full-time CPT member, said her group "documents and exposes abuse of the human rights of Iraqis detained both by US and Iraqi forces." She explained that CPT also advocates for the human rights of prisoners, helps families find their loved ones in the prison system, and holds vigils for those who have disappeared and imprisoned in Iraq. "Tom also accompanied Palestinian Iraqis leaving the country because they feared for their security and camped out with them at the Syrian border for a couple of weeks," Kern told Al-Ahram Weekly. For many of his friends and colleagues, Fox's death is as saddening as it is bewildering. "The fact is, we don't have any idea who kidnapped the four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, or who killed , or why," said Doug Cox, one of Fox's friends at the Langley Hill Friends Meeting, a Quaker church group in Langley, Virginia. According to CPT research published on the group's website www.cpt.org, Fox and other CPT members in Iraq had documented a long list of allegations of verbal, physical and psychological abuse inflicted on Iraqis by US forces," the website also says. Well before the abuses in Abu Ghraib came to light, CPT had already reported that US forces had covered up abuses at the notorious prison. Soon thereafter, journalist Seymour Hersh and others published photos proving illicit interrogation techniques at the prison. "Once these photographs appeared, CPT organised a press conference with Iraqi human rights organisations, where detainees testified to the abuses that they had suffered at the hands of occupation forces," the CPT website says. CPT has chosen not to pull its operations out of Iraq despite the obvious dangers it faces. But CPT's work and Fox's fate has fuelled speculation and conspiracy theories (mostly on the Internet) that he may have been killed by a special commando unit operating in Iraq. In late 2005, US military commanders had accused the Interior Ministry of operating death squads to root out "undesirables". After months of denying their existence, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr last week admitted that "there are people who have infiltrated the army and the interior." The US government promised to launch an investigation into Fox's murder. "We very firmly do not speculate on these matters, because we assertions like these cannot be proven and could put the lives of the remaining hostages in jeopardy," Kern said. "We are taking this position partly because our Iraqi coworkers have told us that publicly speculating about these matters is not helpful." Despite the sadness and shock at losing a friend, those who knew Fox have vowed to continue his work. "His death is especially hard on the children who knew and loved him. We express our love and concern for them, and particularly for Tom's own children who grew up in our meeting... Langley Hill Friends Meeting is committed to ensuring that Tom's work will endure, even though he is no longer able to carry it out," Cox told Al-Ahram Weekly : In a press release issued when Fox was confirmed dead, CPT said: "Despite the tragedy of this day, we remain committed to put into practice these words of Jim Loney (CPT member still held captive): "With the waging of war, we will not comply. With the help of God's grace, we will struggle for justice. With God's abiding kindness, we will love even our enemies."
